There’s lots of smack to be said about Santa and, as anarchists, we aren’t big cheerleaders for the bearded guy; but we can appreciate that his sneaking game is on point. So a few of us celebrated this year by doing some sneaking of our own.
Late into the night on Christmas 2021, a call was answered to attack the banks and funding sources of the CGL pipeline that is being forced on the Wet’suwet’en people. Banks – like RBC – are very easy targets as they have many branches across the cities we live in that are relatively unguarded at night. A Hamilton branch, on Upper James, was one such branch visited and redecorated.
We entered the first doors of the bank and filled their three ATM card slots with glue. We then additionally superglued the lock on the door into the bank. On the way out we left a message “NO PIPELINES ON STOLEN LAND” on the doors for all to see. This was a very easy and replicable action that we encourage others to take up. It is possible that the continued attack against banks like RBC will begin to eat into their pipeline profits (if we can cost them enough money) and convince them to withdraw financial support for the project. And, if not, it’s a real cathartic “fuck you” against the institutions destroying everything good in this world.
As we head into this liminal space between Christmas and New Years, some of the darkest days of the year, we are reminded to take stock of what still matters to us and what we hope to bring into our lives in the coming trip around the sun. As we head into what might be another COVID winter, we encourage all our comrades to look into the warmest parts of their hearts where we all still want prisons and banks to burn and for our friends to hold our hands and dance around the flames. For as long as we keep those sparks alive in our eyes, everything is still possible.